10 things you need to know today

A car is surrounded by
sheep as they return home from grazing fields outside Tbilisi,
Georgia, on Wednesday.REUTERS/David
Mdzinarishvili

Good morning. Here's what you need to know.

Get ready for a lot of Fedspeak. Economists,
analysts, and investors will all be obsessing over every word
coming from Federal Reserve officials. After all,
that's what
former Fed chair Ben Bernanke would probably recommend.
Here's Wells Fargo's Sam Bullard with what's coming up: "Thursday
is a busy day with multiple Fed speakers — St. Louis Fed
President Bullard and Richmond Fed President Lacker (voter, hawk)
speak in Washington at a monetary policy conference hosted by the
Cato Institute; Fed Chair Yellen (voter, dove) gives the
welcoming remarks at a Fed policy conference titled 'Monetary
Policy Implementation and Transmission in the Post-Crisis
Period'; Chicago Fed President Evans speaks in Chicago on
monetary policy and the U.S. economic outlook; New York Fed
President Dudley (voter, dove) speaks in New York on the U.S.
economic outlook and what it means for monetary policy; and Fed
Vice Chairman Fischer (voter, moderate) speaks in Washington on
financial stability and monetary policy.

Two important labor-market reports on
deck. At 8:30 a.m. ET we'll get the latest
weekly tally of US initial jobless claims, which economists
estimate fell to 270,000 from 276,000 a week ago. At 10 a.m. ET,
we'll get the September Job Openings and Labor Turnover report.
Economists estimate the report to reveal there were 5.4 million
job openings during the month. Meanwhile, markets aren't doing
much. Dow futures are down 16 points and S&P futures are
flat. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei closed flat, while Hong Kong's Hang
Seng climbed 2.4%. Europe is lower with the Euro Stoxx 50 down
0.6%.

The ECB is ready to deploy more stimulus.
European Central Bank head Mario Draghi said signs of inflation
had "somewhat weakened" at a speech before members of European
Parliament in Brussels. Draghi reiterated that the ECB was
prepared to boost stimulus if needed.

British home prices are picking up. The
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said in its RICS
Residential Survey for October that UK house prices were expected
to rise by 4.5% per annum over the next five years (a cumulative
increase of around 25%). "If the five year projections from
members regarding the outlook for both prices and rents is
anything to go by, property is set to become even more
unaffordable going forward making the government's focus of
boosting the delivery of new homes absolutely critical,"
it said.

China credit growth slumps. "China's
broadest measure of new credit slumped to the lowest in 15 months
in October, adding to evidence six central-bank interest-rate
cuts in a year have yet to spur a sustained pick up in
borrowing," Bloomberg news reported. "Aggregate financing fell to
476.7 billion yuan ($75 billion), according to a report from the
People's Bank of China on Thursday. That was lower than all 25
economists' projections and less than half the median forecast
1.05 trillion yuan."

Rolls-Royce shares crash. The
engineering firm Rolls-Royce said 2015 profits would be at the
lower end of estimates in an update on its
performance. The company had previously set profit guidance
for 2015 at £1.325 billion to £1.475 billion ($2 billion to $2.24
billion). The picture looks even worse for next year, with
profits in 2016 hit by £650 million of headwinds.

Atlantic City has the highest foreclosure rate of any big
city in the US. "One in every 257 houses in Atlantic
City had a foreclosure filing last month, more than four times
the national average, said RealtyTrac, which tracks housing
market trends," Reuters' Hilary Russ reported. "Overall, US
foreclosure activity increased 6% from September, but was still
6% lower than in the same month a year ago, the data showed.
Foreclosure filings were reported on 115,134 properties for the
month, or one in every 1,147 housing units nationwide."

Credit Suisse says 2016 will be a
"watershed." "The coming year is likely to prove to
be a watershed in global economic history," Credit Suisse's
Ric Deverell wrote as his opening to the firm's global
outlook report. The reason for this momentous year ahead is
that the Federal Reserve is expected to begin "the process
of normalizing US interest rates, after seven years of
historically unprecedented accommodation," he said. He added
that the "intersection of the cyclical and the structural is
likely to result in further substantial changes in the flow of
capital around the globe."